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Who is this guy?

Jason Freyer is a youth pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA. He enjoys his job so much that he has decided to spend countless hours of his free time writing about it in the new modern medium of weblog, or blog. That brings us here. Welcome to the blog of J, or in its condensed version, J-Blog. Jason writes this blog to be by youth pastors, for youth pastors, but watch with amazement as he dives into other topics as worship leading, preaching, politics, the Pittsburgh sports scene, or whatever else happens to be on his mind. Jason lives with his wife Sarah and their two dogs Marley and Melvin. This is some of the finest third person writing he's done in a while.

I'm really trying to dig back into being diligent with writing and blogging. I have a bunch of ideas floating through my head, and I think it's best to get them out on paper (or in this case, the interwebs). So here's the thought of the day:

I was thinking through Matthew 25:14-31, otherwise known as the parable of the talents. Pastor Jim will be on vacation next week (though, he will be home for catacombs, and will be joining us for the entire evening, which will either be epic and awesome or utter disaster. keep your eyes peeled) and has asked me to fill in for him at his Wednesday bible study. This is awesome! The crowd at Jim's bible study is significantly older than most of my clientele, which allows me to have a bit of fun with them. I think it's good for us to step out of our normal routines every now and again. It keeps us fresh for whatever ministry comes next. But I digress...

As I was thinking about Matthew, I was working through how I typically interpret the scriptures. I was thinking through how I feel like God has given us all talents, and that it's our duty to actually invest our talents. If you're a talented singer, you should sing. If you're an artist, you should make beautiful art. If you have a warm smile, you should share it with others. We seem to have a pretty go handle on this idea in our current economy, but obviously investment comes with a certain amount of risk. You might not make back everything you put into the market.

For years, I have taught on this passage (it's actually the first passage I've ever preached on), and I have told people that these guys were just as likely to come back to their master with absolutely nothing as they were to come back with what they did. As I was thinking about that point last night, I kind of wished that Jesus had included that in his parable. What would it have looked like for the King if someone had tried to invest his talents, but failed to make anything, or in fact lost some of it? All of it? What would the King's reaction have been?

As I was criticizing the author of life for not being a good storyteller in my own living room, a thought (or perhaps something else...) popped into my head and said "yeah, but if it's not there that's part of story too, right?" So often, we spend time focusing on what the Bible says, which of course is a good thing. But sometimes, I think we look past the things the Bible doesn't say. We call Jesus the "author and perfecter of our faith", so why is it so unreasonable to imagine that the stuff that isn't in the story is every bit as important as the stuff that is? I mean, one of my favorite examples of this is the homosexual question. Of course the Bible brings it up, and has some pretty harsh things to be said about it, and we need to take that seriously. However, Jesus in all of his teachings doesn't bring it up. Not once in three years or four gospels does Jesus talk about homosexuals. Nope. Never. Doesn't that give us some insight to how highly this issue was ranked on Jesus' priority list? If it's not there, does that give it as much if not more weight than if it was?

Some thoughts to ponder of course. Under no circumstances do I think I have all the answers about faith or the Bible. But I would encourage some lively discussion here at the J-Blog about the parts of the Bible that aren't there.